Light
fiction
Katha 2013 • First Place By Mustafa Abubaker
A
All the lights in my home are off. The
ace: "Light" bysnow’s MUSTAFA Georgia so deepABUBAKER, I’m doing lungesAtlanta, in order to get to the door, my breath
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mimickingby cigarette smoke, my fingers on Massachusetts Place: "Legacy" ANU CHITRAPU, Boston,
the verge of frostbite. Ringing the bell, I remember how I used ace: "Ahalya" by DEBJANI MUKHERJEE, Auckland, New Zealand to slide down the hill whenever it snowed as a child, clad in a parka. My father, all bundled ble Mention: "Ripples" by ARCHITHA Morristown, New Jersey up in black puffy jackets, earmuffs andSUBRAMANIAN, gloves would catch me, and bless his soul, agree to catch "Burning" me one moreby time as I would trot up Canberra, Australia ble Mention: NIKESH MURALI, s and four hundreds of short the cookbooks hill. I’d look and out into the horizon, admire how the Sun’s light hit the snow gently atest novel Tulip Season: A Mitra Basu Mystery is enough to let it be but strongly enough to let it glow. I hear footsteps, a low murmur growing in intensity. The door opens and there’s my father’s wife, cigarette in her right hand as his year she judges Chitra Divakaruni and BhartiI’m quiet. For a while, we just study pincheswere my chin with her left. Smoke each other. I’ve gained a little weight. His d. rises and finds refuge in her brunette hair. hair is almost gone. There’s a tattoo on my She’s aged; the wrinkles on her face have upper arm. I notice his teeth, once as white settled into thin narrow lines embedded in as the clouds, have gone to shit; stained with her cheeks. I feel sorry for her. I look into tobacco, a strange brownish-yellow mixture. her eyes, eyes that have seen death more “Beta,” he says this time, blowing his than birth. She stares daggers into mine. I’m nose, taking the ginger ale from Fatima. “I scared she might slam the door. But then, I didn’t realize you were coming.” notice my father slowly making his way toSheepishly, I look down and mumble wards the door, clutching a cane and smiling. something incoherent. I feel small. Why My heart drops. didn’t I tell him? Would it have been that His pupils have managed to retain that difficult? What’s wrong with me? distinctive mischievous twinkle I first recog“I guess I just wanted to surprise you.” nized in my childhood. He moves her out “I’m surprised,” he retorts, not missing of the way and takes my hand and leads me a beat. into the home. The texture of his palm is I can’t tell if he’s serious. Burping after a rough, patchy; I wonder if he still takes care few sips of the ginger ale, he tells me about of himself. how Fatima makes him the happiest man on “The power’s out,” Fatima announces, the planet. He tells me about his work and closing the door behind me. I spot a few how the guys Bruce and Timothy are still candles burning in the foyer, dripping wax making it bearable. He tells me about how on the plates. Bruce’s son was diagnosed with cancer, how “Did you call the power company?” I he drove to the hospital and almost veered want to know. We’re in the living room now off the road and into a tree because he didn’t and my father, Baba, lays his cane down on want to feel any more pain. He tells me the side of the burgundy sofa and sighs. After about how one day he noticed Bruce didn’t asking Fatima for a ginger ale, he shakes his come in to work and he found him weeping head. in his car, his shirt wet with tears. He tells “I’ve been waiting for the right time to me about how the wind lets my mother’s light those candles,” he says to me, winking. voice sing in his ears every February. He “You think I would pass up such a perfect tells me about how one day, getting groceropportunity?” ies, he spotted a shoplifter and decided to 38 | INDIA CURRENTS | July 2013
let him go. He tells me about the time he got the call that my grandmother had passed, how the room’s temperature had suddenly dropped to freezing, how he’d locked himself in the house for weeks and hadn’t spoken to anybody. He tells me about how much he missed me, how he wrote me letters but he never heard back. He tells me how Fatima can never understand. He tells me how he himself cannot understand. The candles burn bright in the dark and I can feel my father’s soul shining brightly; proud, humble, innocent, even. And I cannot do anything about it. My soul—torn, berated, spit on and chewed up—isn’t worth hearing all of this. But I sit there and listen to him quell disbeliefs about certain things and strengthen my tastes towards others. There’s a lull in the conversation—and for a second, I think he wants me to tell him where I’ve been. Why I left. Why mail addressed to me still comes to the house. Why I never stay for long. Why, in the dead of the night, when he is asleep and getting a little bit of peace in his life, I call from miles away using a phone booth and just breathe into the phone, listening to him say “is it you?” over and over again. But, I’m wrong. He ignores the fact, pretends like it never happened. He’s old. Maybe his memory is warped—or maybe he just doesn’t care. Maybe he’s waiting for the right moment to make me feel worthless, abandoning a home at a time when it gave shelter to a sick mother, a grieving father and a lifetime of wealth. I’m exploring the home, running my fingers along the walls, reminiscing on the days they knew nothing. With trepidation, I move towards my childhood room, once adorned with posters of musical icons worshipped in my adolescence, once a haven to old novels I wrote notes in and cherished: all the things I had left behind. Opening the door to the room in which